The present invention relates in general to adjustable shower heads and, in particular, to a new and useful adjustable massage shower head which, with one adjusting action, can adjust a spray from a slow pulsating spray to a more rapidly pulsating spray to a needle sharp continuous spray and finally to a soft continuous spray.
In one known adjustable massage shower head (DE-OS No. 27 22 967), a valve rotor is disposed directly in the interior of the tubular body and rotatably mounted in the spray bottom by means of a bearing pin so that it is moved axially together with the tubular body when the shower head is switched from pulsating to nonpulsating spray or vice versa. The distributing element consists of a pipe nipple with a central bore on the inflow side, which bore is closed on the opposite face by a face wall and selectively connectable through radial slots either to the interior of the tubular body or else to the housing cavity surrounding the tubular body. For this purpose there is fastened to the upper end of the tubular body a cylindrical collar which encloses the pipe nipple and is axially movable relative to the latter and which also has radial holes capable of establishing the connection between the radial holes of the pipe nipple and the interior of the tubular body. In the axial end positions of this cylindrical collar or of the tubular body, only one each of the two possible spray types is produced, namely either the pulsating spray or the nonpulsating spray.
It should be possible in such massage shower heads to be able to vary the rotary speed of the valve rotor and, hence, the pulsation frequency of the pulsating water spray while the liquid throughput remains approximately constant. This known massage shower head has no such capability.
Massage shower heads with such capabilities are however already known. These also offer the additional possibility of producing selectively pulsating and nonpulsating liquid sprays. Such a massage shower head is known from DE-PS No. 24 09 315, for example. This massage shower head has two groups of spray channels, one group of which consists of axis-parallel longitudinal slots disposed on the circumference of a spray ring while the other group consists of spray holes disposed in a spray bottom, above which a valve rotor rotates, opening and closing them alternately. The switching device by means of which the switch from pulsating to nonpulsating sprays can be made, consists of a valve assembly comprising a round disc with various flow-through channels which can selectively be closed or opened by means of a covering device rotatable relative thereto. A total of three flow channels is formed, one of which conducts the flow-through medium directly to the spray channel group which produces a nonpulsating spray while the other conducts the flow-through medium through tangential guide channels to the blades of the valve rotor in a turbine chamber, whence the medium discharges in the form of pulsating jets through the second group of spray channels. A third channel which also leads through flow-through channels of the round disc, which can be selectively covered, is provided to reduce the rotary speed of the valve rotor and, hence, the pulsation frequency of the pulsating spray. If this third channel is open, a part of the flow medium is branched off the above mentioned second channel and conducted axially into the turbine housing so that, while the same amount of medium still gets into the turbine housing, the medium component effecting the rotation of the valve rotor is reduced. This causes the valve rotor to rotate more slowly, reducing the pulsation frequency accordingly.
Apart from the fact that, in this arrangement, the desired effect of varying the pulsation frequency is relatively minor and dependent a great deal on the prevailing flow pressure, there is the danger that the rotor stops or even fails to start when the third channel is open all the way. Moreover, to build this assembly, a great many components of complicated shape and correspondingly high assembly costs are unavoidable.
In another known massage shower head (DE-OS No. 28 19 945) of a design similar to that just described, there is disposed, for the variation of the pulsation effect, i.e. of the intensity of the pulsating water sprays, between the valve rotor and the pulsation-generating spray holes in the spray bottom of the turbine chamber, a disc, mounted on a concentric pin and equipped with segment-shaped cutouts, it being possible, by turning this disc, to close a part of the spray holes. Due to the reduced pressure buildup, the water spray is softer when all spray holes are open and correspondingly harder when a part of these spray holes is closed. To rotate this closing disc, a separate rocking lever is provided which communicates via gears with a toothed hub and with the closing disc. Here again, the cost for parts of partly very complicated shape and for the assembly is considerable while the effect achieved, on the other hand, is relatively poor.
For the purpose of obtaining sprays of different hardness it is also known in a shower head generating pulsating sprays only (U.S. Pat. No. 2,878,066) to make a valve rotor, equipped with turbine blades and segment-shaped closing discs, adjustable in its spacing from a spray disc by means of an axially movable bearing screw. A variation of the pulsation frequency is not achievable with this arrangement, however. Moreover, moving the bearing screw, thereby changing the spray quality, can be accomplished only in the disassembled state of the shower head.